League of Nations instituted

Author

Website Name

Year Published

Title

URL

Access Date

August 02, 2015

Publisher

A+E Networks

On January 10, 1920, the League of Nations formally comes into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, takes effect.

In 1914, a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of the most costly war ever fought to that date. As more and more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. President Woodrow Wilson became a vocal advocate of this concept, and in 1918 he included a sketch of the international body in his 14-point proposal to end the war.

In November 1918, the Central Powers agreed to an armistice to halt the killing in World War I. Two months later, the Allies met with conquered Germany and Austria-Hungary at Versailles to hammer out formal peace terms. President Wilson urged a just and lasting peace, but England and France disagreed, forcing harsh war reparations on their former enemies. The League of Nations was approved, however, and in the summer of 1919 Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations to the U.S. Senate for ratification.

Wilson suffered a severe stroke in the fall of that year, which prevented him from reaching a compromise with those in Congress who thought the treaties reduced U.S. authority. In November, the Senate declined to ratify both. The League of Nations proceeded without the United States, holding its first meeting in Geneva on November 15, 1920.

During the 1920s, the League, with its headquarters in Geneva, incorporated new members and successfully mediated minor international disputes but was often disregarded by the major powers. The League’s authority, however, was not seriously challenged until the early 1930s, when a series of events exposed it as ineffectual. Japan simply quit the organization after its invasion of China was condemned, and the League was likewise powerless to prevent the rearmament of Germany and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The declaration of World War II was not even referred to by the then-virtually defunct League.

In 1946, the League of Nations was officially dissolved with the establishment of the United Nations. The United Nations was modeled after the former but with increased international support and extensive machinery to help the new body avoid repeating the League’s failures.

Also on this day

On this day in 1901, a drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, produces an enormous gusher of crude oil, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the advent of the American oil industry. The geyser was discovered at a depth of over 1,000 feet, flowed at...

While in exile aboard a warship in Cape Fear, North Carolina’s Royal Governor Josiah Martin issues a proclamation calling on the king’s loyal subjects to raise an armed force to combat the rebels, raise the royal standard and restore the province to its former glorious freedom. These North Carolina...

On this day in 2008, at the New Delhi Auto Expo in India, Tata Motors debuts the Nano, billing it as the world’s cheapest car: The anticipated price tag is around $2,500. Tata, India’s largest automaker, called the four-door, bubble-shaped mini-vehicle (it was just 5 feet wide and 10 feet...

On this day in 1861, William Seward accepts President-elect Abraham Lincoln’s invitation to become secretary of state. Seward became one of the most important members ofLincoln’s cabinet and engineered the purchase of Alaska after the Civil War.
A native of New York, Seward taught school in the South before returning to...

As part of an arrangement to decrease Cold War tensions and end a brutal war in Angola, Cuban troops begin their withdrawal from the African nation. The process was part of a multilateral diplomatic effort to end years of bloodshed in Angola—a conflict that, at one time or another, involved...

A search for evidence in the disappearance and probable murder of Helle Craftscontinues on the snow-covered banks of the Housatonic River in Connecticut. Investigators had finally narrowed the search to this area after Helle, a Pan Am flight attendant, had vanished on November 18, 1986. Although her body was never...

On this day in 1962, an avalanche on the slopes of an extinct volcano kills more than 4,000 people in Peru. Nine towns and seven smaller villages were destroyed.
Mount Huascaran rises 22,000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains. Beneath it laid many small Peruvian communities, the inhabitants of...

Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein and one of the architects of the 1921 peace treaty with Britain, is elected president of the newly established Irish Free State.In 1905, Griffith founded Sinn Fein, a political party dedicated to independence for all of Ireland. From its inception, the party became...

Four years after the end of World War I, President Warren G. Harding orders U.S. occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home.In 1917, after several years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America’s well-supplied forces into World War I was a major turning point in...

The first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising 51 nations, convenes at Westminster Central Hall in London, England. One week later, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time and established its rules of procedure. Then, on January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, a measure...

On this day in 2000, in one of the biggest media mergers in history, America Online Inc. announces plans to acquire Time Warner Inc. for some $182 billion in stock and debt. The result was a $350 billion mega-corporation, AOL Time Warner, which held dominant positions in every type of...

Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, dies on this day in 1961.
Hammett was born in Maryland on May 27, 1894. He left school at age 13 and took a series of low-paying jobs, eventually landing at Pinkerton’s detective agency. He worked as a detective for eight years and turned...

It was a song that celebrated the exploits of a rebellious trucker with a reckless disregard for human life and highway safety codes. It gave the gravelly-voiced C.W. McCall his biggest pop hit on this day in 1976, except that technically, “C.W. McCall” was a figment of the imagination. The...

Franklin James, the lesser-known older brother of Jesse, is born in Clay County, Missouri.
Frank and Jesse James were both legends in their own time, though Jesse is better remembered today because of his more dramatically violent death. The two Missouri brothers drifted into a life of crime after serving...

On this day in 1941, Franklin Roosevelt introduces the lend-lease program to Congress. The plan was intended to help Britain beat back Hitler’s advance while keeping America only indirectly involved in World War II. As Roosevelt addressed Congress, the Battle of Britain was in its full destructive swing and Hitler...

On this day in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson asks Congress for more money to support the Vietnam War. Lyndon’s War, a war Johnson actually inherited from President John F. Kennedy, had achieved nothing by 1967. The North Vietnamese use of guerrilla warfare tactics resulted in approximately 14,000...

On January 10, 1982, San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Dwight Clark makes a leaping catch in the end zone on a pass from quarterback Joe Montana with 51 seconds left in the National Football Conference (NFC) championship game against the Dallas Cowboys. “The Catch” set up a successful extra point...

President Johnson, in his annual State of the Union message to Congress, asks for enactment of a 6 percent surcharge on personal and corporate income taxes to help support the Vietnam War for two years, or “for as long as the unusual expenditures associated with our efforts continue.” Congress delayed...

Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey criticizes President Richard Nixon, saying that it was taking longer for President Nixon to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam than it did to defeat Hitler.
Humphrey called for an immediate end to the war, declaring: “Had I been elected, we would now be out of...

Four years after the end of World War I, President Warren G. Harding orders U.S. occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home. In 1917, after several years of bloody stalemate along the Western Front, the entrance of America’s fresh, well-supplied forces into the Great War—a decision announced by President...

On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program is brought before the U.S. Congress for consideration.
Roosevelt devised the Lend-Lease program as a means of aiding Great Britain in its war effort against the Germans. The program gave the chief executive the power to “sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease,...